Stress and rhythm disorder due to the epidemic and confinement can lead to compulsive eating behaviors. Everyone reacts in their own way to the Covid-19 epidemic and the containment it causes. For some, stress and rhythm disturbances can cause food “excess”. Here are the tips from Manon Marchand-Aylsworth, Life and Wellness coach, founder of Bonjour my Body, to avoid overeating.
To avoid eating too much and to stay healthy, you must already make up your daily meals: a good plate is a plate with three compartments: a part of animal or vegetable protein, a part of raw or cooked vegetable and a part of starchy food.
In addition to providing a balanced diet, a “good plate” helps avoid the feeling of hunger between meals. Nevertheless, the quantity present in the plates must be adapted to the confinement: we must try to limit its portions a little because we all have much less physical activity, and therefore less energy needs. Even if Manon recognizes that this is not always obvious, she advises to eat more slowly, to get there.
Despite a “good plate” at lunch, if you feel like snacking during the afternoon Manon offers a strategic choice: the number of dairy products per day is two for men and three for women, if at lunch we rather took a fruit, we can therefore take a dairy product as afternoon snack (yogurt, cheese…). Especially since the latter is an interesting appetite suppressant because it contains proteins.
However, you should not always deprive yourself of these “pleasures”, but rather change the way you consume, Manon warns. If you really want something, you should not put yourself in a state of resistance by saying “it’s not good to eat chocolate” or “I’m going to gain weight” because it can only lead to negative thoughts. Watch it, smell it, put it on a nice plate, cut it up and eat it slowly.
CONTAINMENT, SOURCE (OR NOT) OF SNACKING
If stress can lead to cravings, Manon reports that, despite the epidemic spreading in the United States, some of her clients are less stressed than before confinement: many felt significant work-related stress and report to her that they are less stressed now that they are teleworking. On the other hand, some of her clients who lose their rhythm, on partial unemployment or with little remote work, eat at staggered hours and are more tempted by snacking. For people in this scenario, she advises to keep a rhythm, a routine and take advantage of these hours to move around a bit, by making trips with a staircase for example- see our 7-minute workout a day blog-post, and to have roughly the same wake-up times. and meal.